


Three Shades Above the Sixth Harmonic

by wilde_stallyn



Category: Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: F/M, Gen, also features a brief but significant appearance by Shashona (Llarimar's wife), oh look I gave her a name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 11:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17042678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilde_stallyn/pseuds/wilde_stallyn
Summary: Lightsong looks for home and Llarimar tries to keep his mouth shut.





	Three Shades Above the Sixth Harmonic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizmo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizmo/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, dizmo!

Llarimar wasn’t supposed to be Lightsong’s priest. 

Traditionally, once the Rites of Return were performed and the family given a chance to say goodbye to their loved one, the body of a soon-to-awaken Returned was paraded through the streets of T’Telir and sequestered in the Court of the Gods. Most people who knew a Returned before their death never met the god they became, and the priesthoods made an effort to keep it that way.

Llarimar had needed to be careful not to reveal his familial relationship in his petition to leave Kindwinds’ service when news of a new Returned reached the Court. He had played it off as political manoeuvering; after all, who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to move up from the middle ranks to become high priest to a new god? It had taken greasing the palms of more than a couple of other applicants to the position, not to mention those few in the Court who couldn’t fail to make the connection, in order to ensure he was chosen to head Lightsong’s priesthood.

Four years on, Llarimar didn’t for a moment regret pledging himself to his brother’s service, but he did understand why it was, perhaps, a terrible idea.

* * *

The sun was well over the horizon and Llarimar was busy planning celebrations for the upcoming New Year when a servant came to notify him that his god was awake. He made his way to Lightsong’s bedchamber and entered just as the servants finished dressing him in the day’s adornments. “Good morning, Your Grace.”

“Ah, yes, good morning, Llarimar.” Lightsong turned, the gold thread of the intricate embroidery on his red robes sparkling in the light from a nearby window. “A fine day to lie around indolently in the sunshine and squander the time of all you fine people who seem to insist on following me around, don’t you think?”

Llarimar raised a single eyebrow. “Indeed, Your Grace. However you do have a few things to attend to this morning.”

Lightsong sighed and flopped down on a plushly upholstered lounge. “Fine. Go ahead then.”

“Very well.” Llarimar had grown accustomed to the exercise of pulling teeth to get Lightsong through his daily duties. He was fairly sure he could play this game in his sleep by now. Frankly, it was either play along or lose his sanity entirely. “If you would please tell me about your dreams, Your Grace.”

“I dreamed I was at… a garden party, I think?”

Llarimar raised the Tome of the Tones from it’s customary place under his arm and opened it to the first blank page. An aide came forward to present him with a quill and ink and Llarimar began to take notes. “Go on, Your Grace.”

“Well, there were people, but I can’t remember any of them clearly. We were drinking wine in the front garden of a house. Mostly, I remember the house.”

“Alright, what do you remember about the house, Your Grace? Even small details may be important.”

Lightsong closed his eyes briefly, then continued, “It was a two story house. Deep blue, three shades above the sixth harmonic, with a red door and shutters. Oh, and it was trimmed with gold, in a spiral motif.”

Llarimar froze for a moment, startled, but quickly forced himself to keep writing. “Did anything happen at this garden party, Your Grace?” he asked, somewhat trepidatious. 

Lightsong shook his head. “No, not really. The house seemed to be the key element,” he said, then seemed to paused to consider. “Besides the wine, of course. Wine is always key.” He beckoned over a servant waiting with a tray of drinks. He raised a goblet of wine to Llarimar and took a long swallow. “But, truly, the house seemed so ...familiar, somehow.”

Llarimar carefully kept his gaze on the page of his book, and concentrated on schooling his expression into blank neutrality.

“Do you think that house was maybe where I used to live?”

Llarimar felt his hand clench around his quill. In the most banal voice he could manage, he said, “You know I can’t discuss your previous life, Your Grace. Perhaps it is time we moved along to the Offerings Hall.”

He could already tell that today was going to be trying.

* * *

Lightsong and Llarimar slowly made their way down the line of offerings. Llarimar couldn’t help but think today’s was a particularly tedious batch. There was always a lot of bad poetry this time of year; something about the New Year made every blacksmith and their cousin think they’re profound. But Lightsong gave as generous a review to each one as Llarimar could possibly believe were his honest opinions. 

One painting did stand out, though. It was painted in bold strokes of pure tones, and showed one of T’Telir’s busiest street corners, full of people going about their business. Herdsmen drove a flock of rainbow sheep to market, narrowly avoiding the carriage of a well-dressed woman of at least the Second Heightening. Roads ran off across the city in all directions, and a man lifted his small child up to wrap a bright green scarf around the neck of the statue that stood in the centre of where they met.

“I love paintings of the city,” Lightsong said.

Llarimar looked at him quizzically. “Your Grace, you have received nine paintings of city scenes in the past month, and the most excitement you showed for any of the previous ones was to say one was ‘impressively linear.’”

“Oh. Well, there must be an awful lot of bad city paintings, then. And that one was very line-y. Just chock full of lines.” Lightsong cocked his head. “I do quite like this one, though.

“I wonder if the blue house is anywhere near there,” he mused, then frowned. “I don’t know if I’m even from T’Telir.”

Llarimar pressed his lips together and refrained from commenting.

They continued down the row, with Lightsong giving brief but fair reactions to most of the other pieces, including one gorgeously-scribed, but truly terrible poem, that was clearly commissioned by someone with more money than sense.

The final painting on the wall was of a young woman sitting by a fountain, gazing into the water. In the reflection on the pool’s surface the viewer could clearly see a man, presumably a suitor, waiting for her outside the frame of the painting.

Lightsong stared at the painting for a minute and then his eyes lit up. He suddenly turned and headed for the door. “Come on, Llarimar! And bring a mirror!”

“But, Your Grace,” Llarimar called, as he hurried to catch up, “what did you think about the painting?”

* * *

Lightsong led them down to the barrier wall that shielded the front gates of the Court of the Gods from view.

Llarimar frowned. “You know you can’t leave the Court grounds, Your Grace.”

“I’m not going to go out, I’m just going to look out. We’ll sit here,” Lightsong said, and servants rushed forward with a bench, “and you,” he gestured to another servant, this one carrying a large mirror, “take that over there.”

The servant hurried to set up the mirror at the spot opposite the end of the barrier wall where Lightsong pointed. Lightsong sat down and squinted at the mirror. “Turn it a little to the left,” he called. “There!”

He looked up at Llarimar and patted the bench beside him. “Come on, have a seat.”  
Llarimar sighed, and reluctantly sat down.

“See?” Lightsong asked, clearly pleased with himself. “Now, next time the gate opens, we’ll be able to see out into the city!”

* * *

They sat there and watched people enter and leave the Court for the better part of an hour. At first, Lightsong was rapt every time the gates opened and revealed a glimpse of the street beyond in his mirror, but eventually his excitement seemed to ebb.

“Is something the matter, Your Grace?” Llarimar asked.

Lightsong flung himself down on his back along the bench dramatically. “It’s no use. I can only see a small sliver of this one street; the angle on the gates is too narrow.”

“May I ask what exactly you’re trying to see, Your Grace?”

“I just thought maybe if I could see out, get a better sense of the city, I might be able to place the blue house.”

“There are no houses directly outside the gate, Your Grace. Only one road leads up to the Court of the Gods.”

“Well, yes, I know that _now_.” 

Llarimar rubbed his forehead. “If you are done here, Your Grace, there are a number petitioners back at the palace, waiting on your mercy.”

Lightsong grimaced. “I don’t know why they would look to me for mercy. Clearly, I’m not even considerate enough to show up on time.”

“You’re their god, Your Grace. If anything, having to wait only makes you seem more divine.”

Lightsong wrinkled his nose even further. “Well, we certainly can’t have that.” He levered himself off the bench. “Alright, let’s go, but when petitions are done, I’m going to need more mirrors, rope, a spyglass, and a lot of bamboo.”

Llarimar passed along the orders to two of his waiting his under-priests and thanked the Iridescent Tones for the privileges of rank that meant his days of having to track down unusual items at a moment’s notice were well behind him.

* * *

After audiences were done for the day and Llarimar had finished his duties seeing the last of the petitioners out, he found Lightsong on the roof of his palace, surrounded by what appeared to be scaffolding. Llarimar gazed up from the lawn below and sighed. He probably didn’t want to know what Lightsong was doing up there. He was, unfortunately, probably going to have to find out. And he was going to have to climb a ladder to do it.

Llarimar reluctantly made his way up the ladder and edged out nervously onto the gently sloping roof tiles. He managed to make it out to where Lightsong had a sort of nest set up at the intersection of the main roof and a gable, and collapsed down on the waiting cushions. “Was it really necessary, Your Grace, to set up whatever it is you’re doing in a location quite so likely to lead to us plummeting three stories off the roof?” 

Lightsong grinned at him. He had a tower built of bamboo holding a number of mirrors high up in the air above him. A pair of Awakener-priests adjusted the mirrors’ angles at the god’s direction so they reflected the city out over the high walls of the Court of the Gods.

“This is a much better view, Llarimar,” Lightsong said, passing Llarimar the spyglass he was using to gaze up at the mirrors.

Llarimar reluctantly took the spyglass and raised it to his eye. He had to admit, the birds-eye view of the city was impressive, but the sense of being so high up made his stomach flip queasily. He passed the spyglass back and closed his eyes. It was much easier to pretend he was sitting on a nice solid couch, on the nice solid ground, and not about to fall and break his neck at any moment, if he closed his eyes.

“It’s a very nice view, Your Grace.” He paused and weighed the wisdom of asking the obvious question. In the end, his curiosity got the better of him. He cracked one eye open and looked over at Lightsong “Is it helping you remember anything about the blue house?”

Lightsong shook his head, seeming to deflate a little. “No, not really. Nothing I can see of the city seems particularly familiar.”

“I’m sorry, Your Grace.”

Lightsong shrugged. “I just wish I could remember who I was before I died. Where I came from,” he said, surprisingly earnestly. “Who lived in that blue house? I wish I knew if I had a family, you know?”

“I know,” Llarimar said softly, as he gazed up at the sky beyond the mirrors.

* * *

Llarimar returned home that night to his blue house, three shades above the sixth harmonic, and pushed open the red door trimmed with gold spirals to find the main floor quiet and dark.

He made his way upstairs, trying to quietly divest himself of his robes without waking his wife, but Shashona rolled over and opened her eyes as he slid into their bed. 

“You’re home late,” she said. “Long day?” 

Llarimar sighed. “You could say that.” He wrapped an arm around Shashona’s waist, and laid his head on her shoulder. “He keeps looking for us.”

Shashona looked down at him with a sad smile. “Well, you know how I feel about the Dictate of the Wave, but I’m sorry he keeps unknowingly pushing you so hard.”

Llarimar turned the side of his face into her shoulder. “The doctrinal reasoning for keeping the Returned from knowing about their previous lives is solid. If he knew about us, it could skew his understanding of the future.”

“I know,” Shashona said, running her fingers through Llarimar’s hair where it was receding off his forehead. “I know it’s important to you that Lightsong be able to do whatever he came back to do unhindered. I just wish this could be easier, for both of you.”

* * *

When Llarimar awoke the next morning, he was alone in bed, Shashona’s side already cool. He went downstairs to find her seated at their dining table surrounded by paints and brushes. He smiled; paints in the dining room were just one of the things one got used to when they were married to one of the most respected artist in T’Telir.

“I have an extra offering for you to take to Lightsong, my love,” she said as he approached, handing him the painting she had been working on. It showed the very room they were currently in, from the point of view of the place Stennimar used to sit when they had family dinners. He and Shashona and Tatara sat around the table, but they were indistinct, unrecognizable unless you knew exactly what the painting depicted. The painting radiated light, and warmth, and what Llarimar could only think of as the feeling of home.

“I- I can’t give him this,” Llarimar stammered, eyes wide. “What if-”

Shashona placed her hands over his where they gripped the edge of the painting tightly. “Yes, you can,” she said. “You already do.”

* * *

When it came time for Lightsong to view the days offerings, Llarimar didn’t know if he was more afraid that Lightsong would take one look at Shashona’s painting and suddenly remember everything from his former life, or that he would pass right by it with barely glance. He held his breath as they approached.

Lightsong stared at the painting for a long time, a deep smile slowly blooming on his face. 

“It feels like I’m there somehow,” he said, reaching out to gently touch the ridges of paint. He turned his head and looked over at Llarimar. “Keep this one.”


End file.
